Google Glass, the New Anti-privacy Tool

By Jonel Juste

Thanks to wearable technology like Google Glass, it is now easier to spy on each other, to record people’s business without their consent and spread it all over the Internet or national TV. As would say astronaut Armstrong, that’s one small step for a man, a giant leap for spying, privacy invasion, and even pornography. Seriously, what is the point of recording everything, collecting data, pictures, videos and sounds everywhere?

We were afraid of the NSA; we feared that the governmental agency had access to our e-mails, our Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts? Guess what: soon there will be worse than the NSA: the guy next-door wearing a pair of spying glasses. We call them “Glassholes” or “Cyborgs”.

Notice that Google Glass is not even out yet. It is just being tested through the Google’s Glass Explorer Program, which offers to individuals to “experiment” that new gadget for $1500. However, State and federal lawmakers have also expressed privacy concerns about the technology that has already sparked controversies and caused many incidents.

Last October in San Diego, a woman who was pulled over for speeding was also ticketed for wearing Google Glass while driving.In Seattle earlier this year, an entrepreneur preemptively prohibited people from wearing Glass at his restaurant. A group called “Stop The Cyborgs” has released a list of bars that are banning Google Glass. The group also offers free anti-glass icons for businesses that want to notify customers the technology is not allowed. Moreover, many casinos have banned wearable technology fearing could be used to cheat or count cards. Some theaters worrying about piracy have added Google Glass to the list of their banned recording devices.

The latest incident happened on Feb. 22 at a bar in San Francisco where a young woman attempted to film the patrons with her wearable computer. The customers, who were not very happy, shoved her and tried aggressively to take down her spying device. After the incident, the bar prohibited Google Glass. Later on, those people’s faces appeared un-blurred on national TV.

The latest scandal regarding privacy happened in France. It has not involved Google Glass but it is worth being reported here. A former adviser to ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy leaked some recordings he secretly taped with a handheld recorder while Mr. Sarkozy was in power. He divulged some private conversations between Sarkozy and his wife, former French Lady Carla Bruni. He also disclosed some unofficial conversations in which Mr. Sarkozy was talking negatively about some of his friends.

Can you imagine someone entering your home and recording everything you do and say, and put it out there for everyone to see or hear? Since when have our private lives become a reality TV show? Is it the end of privacy? With the wearable spying technology, people may be reluctant even to crack a joke with “friends” fearing that their words and gestures may be screened on YouTube or on TV.